Bitcoin Scam App Approved by Apple Robs iPhone User of $600,000+

[x-evil-x]

Real banks and financial institutions have protections in place to reduce the occurrence of these scams, or at the very least give a hope of getting the money back. With cryptocurrency there is no such hope.

This is another example of why cryptocurrency is a bad thing, on top of being bad for the environment.

You do understand that the money you put in a bank isn’t really yours right. The government can take that money. It’s not protected even though you think it is. It’s a false security that’s not really there. Fiat currency always fails. Always. Look up the history of currency and see why something backed on nothing ends up failing.
Bitcoin on the other hand is yours and the government can’t take it. It’s your responsibility to protect it. Its your responsibility to manage it. It is in its beginning days but it will over time be a worldwide currency.
How is giving a country a way to pay for things a bad thing for the environment?
Whats bad for the world is trusting a monolopy printing money machine. If you don’t see how this is bad I can’t help you. Bitcoin won’t inflate. Nobody can print more out of nothing. Nobody owns it. If you don’t see the benefit of nobody owning it then I can’t help you once again. it’s the way “fiat” should of been but that was never possible with people controlling it. So it’s a flawed system by design.
It will be volatile in its beginning stages until it stabilizes. Yes it will over time become less volatile as it already has dramatically over 10 years.

 

[rmariboe]

It’s funny how there’s always someone trying to push blame away from themselves...
The dude ****ed up by not being adequately vigilant in a notoriously scammed environment (crypto), and now he’s trying to place the blame on anyone he can reach - but himself.

 

[Stephen.R]

How is giving a country a way to pay for things a bad thing for the environment?

Cryptocurrency operations are deliberately and increasingly, computationally expensive.

 

[Bug-Creator]

The government can take that money. It’s not protected even though you think it is. It’s a false security that’s not really there. Fiat currency always fails. Always. Look up the history of currency and see why something backed on nothing ends up failing.

Hint:
Wether you think FIAT money is a scam or not has no effect on crypto BEING a scam.

 

[Sander]

Do we agree that the App Store is, in a way, an "Apple Store"? If so, let's compare it with a real, physical, Apple Store.
I go there, see a cool Belkin USB drive, and buy it. When I get home and hook it up, it turns out that it's actually a WiFi-enabled device which transmits my sensitive data to some remote server.

Some people here are saying "Well that's just your own stupidity, because a little bit of due diligence would have told you that Belkin doesn't actually make USB drives." This is a bit of a strange argument, isn't it? Wouldn't it be really strange if I went back to the Apple store with it, and they said "Well yeah we didn't actually check, some guy wearing a Belkin T-shirt gave it to us and we just put it on our shelves, tough luck for you. But we'll remove the remaining ones, maybe."

It would be different if I bought said USB drive out of a car trunk in a shady alley. But I got it from an Apple store. Surely I can have some expectation of safety when I get my stuff there?

 

[aknabi]

I can’t wait to see how fanboys will defend Apple

Well, looks like the argument of the faithful is "Now imagine a phone with multiple app stores and this kind of scams and theft will happen on thousands of phones every day."...

We should be thankful to Tim Apple there's only one source of scams.

If Apple were really leading forward they'd have some extra hurdles/polices for financial apps (and possibly other categories)

 

[aknabi]

Hint:
Wether you think FIAT money is a scam or not has no effect on crypto BEING a scam.

I have a feeling in a decade or two there are going to be many ex-millionaires on the streets of NYC/SF/LA/etc unshowered/shaven in tattered clothing wandering aimlessly with glazed eyes incessantly repeating "FOMO, FOMO, HODL, HODL" over and over.

 

[Sander]

Also, I see a lot of hate on crypto here. The only drawback I can see is that BTC (which is not "all crypto") requires a lot of energy to work. This is the "insurance against someone printing money", and it's an important feature of it. There may be other ways to solve this issue, but it's not an inherent problem with crypto. I also see a lot of other misinformation in this thread.

- "Fiat money" is not backed by actual gold, and hasn't been for ages.
- If I buy something from you in exchange for dollars, and shortly afterwards your government decides to print a bazillion more dollars, thereby lowering the value of mine due to inflation, there is nothing I can do.
- If I print money though, I will be arrested. Forging money even carried the death penalty in many countries.
- The trade-off here is that "printing money" is feasible "if you have an army" (fiat money) or "if you have energy" (crypto). I'm surprised that there's so much crypto backlash coming from the USA, a country with a traditional healthy skepticism towards "government powers".
- (Paper) money has no inherent value either. If I find a stack of 100 guilder notes in my attic (which was worth a lot 25 years ago), then I can't buy anything for them today. I can still exchange them for euros if I take the effort of going to the Dutch Central Bank. In about 10 years time, this won't be the case anymore either, and the money is "gone".
- Printing money to destabilize economies has been done. Google "Operation Bernhard".
- If you ever sold something to someone and received cash rather than going to the bank together and having a registered and traceable transaction, then you did exactly what drugs dealers do. This argument is not crypto-specific. It is very strange that people say "crypto enables ransomware". You know what also enables ransomware? The internet.

Don't use paper money. It's a scam.

 

[Sander]

Oh and maybe some clarification. I'm defending the concept of crypto, not the current craze. Nor the idea of using this currency as an "investment".

If we compare it to the tulip craze in the 1600s, then the message should be "it's unwise to put your life savings into tulip bulbs", and not "tulips are despicable flowers which ruin innocent people."

I have some tulips in my garden. I grew them myself. If someone knocks on my door and breathlessly offers to buy them from me for a small fortune, I'll shrug and make the deal. And then probably grow some more, because I like them and "believe in them". And if you go around warning people not to buy tulips for that much money, that's absolutely fine. You're even right!

 

[BvizioN]

I can’t wait to see how fanboys will defend Apple

Probably not as entertaining as the reactions of Apple haters/trolls (cough-cough) that sort of dominate this forum board.

 

[Td1970]

Developers complained that Apple’s rules are draconian and it should be the wild Wild West now it not draconian enough. In truth, There are 100s of millions of companies in the world. If I name my app the same as another company who doesn’t have an app on my platform, chances are good I might not be aware of them. So would it be Apple’s fault they tricked people into downloading the app that worked as submitted until I switched it on my end.

Yes. You pay 30% to Apple to prevent this. Apple failed.

Maybe Apple should offer the refund 30% of the theft. Since that’s what they charge for protection from this type of thing

 

[Td1970]

Lol, can you imagine how bad it would be if Apple did NOT pay attention at all & scammers didn’t have to go to these extreme lengths of 1st building an actual legitimate app, then surreptitiously switching it into a different function? Can you imagine how much $ people would have had robbed from them by now??

Oh… you never thought about that at all? You couldn’t care less about anyone or their potential losses? You were just looking for some low hanging fruit to make a stupid & disingenuous snark filled meaningless jab at Apple?

Gotcha. 👍🏼

Your reply has far more snark. 👍

 

[Abazigal]

I can’t wait to see how fanboys will defend Apple

The point isn’t that Apple isn’t infallible, but that the solution shouldn’t be to do away with the App Store model altogether just because it can’t ensure zero scams running around.

I maintain that there is value in the App Store model and believe that it still allows for the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.

Apple can and needs to do better. That’s really all there is to it.

 

[BYTEME420]

LOL - Whine what you will about Apple and their "walled garden"... But they do a better job than the Android world does.

Does anyone here actually believe every single iOS app is beyond reproach of scam or threat? Would you entrust some random app to your entire net worth?

I feel for this guy, but he was an idiot. You've got a million dollars in unsecured currency (supported by a company that makes HARDWARE wallets) and you're going to download some random app to check your balance? Really?

Let's look at the sales pitch for the developer he thought he was downloading:

Information stored online
can be copied & stolen.​

Online exchanges and wallet providers can disappear, go offline, be hacked. They are not reliable.

 

[MrDerby01]

LOL!!!!!! I am happy this happened on Apple's watch. Smoke and mirrors!

 

[kk200]

Why? They didn't force the guy to enter his credentials. He should have done his research to realize that the legitimate company doesn't have an app store app. A really expensive lesson this guy learned.

if everyone needs to do this research, why we need a walled garden ruled by Apple?

 

[I7guy]

if everyone needs to do this research, why we need a walled garden ruled by Apple?

Because when you entrust your money or valuables to someone or something you should make doubly sure?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

And what you mentioned won't go away if Apple charges $0 for the developer fee and $0 for the commission. The bar of $99 and 30% will not change the tide, it's false to think it will.

No, what will change the tide will be Apple allowing people to install apps directly from developer’s websites, with Apple charging developers nothing for that besides for the hardware that developers will need to develop (a Mac) and test (an iOS device) that app.

This will result in good apps being readily available via a web search and grassroots of people telling each other about them.

The App Store can continue unchanged.

This shouldn’t be remotely controversial - this is exactly how macOS has operated for over a decade.

 

[I7guy]

The point isn’t that Apple isn’t infallible, but that the solution shouldn’t be to do away with the App Store model altogether just because it can’t ensure zero scams running around.

I maintain that there is value in the App Store model and believe that it still allows for the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.

Apple can and needs to do better. That’s really all there is to it.

The optics aren’t good all-around on this one.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

This will be interesting to muscle App Store customer protection for two reasons:

1) Does the App Store make it easier to pin point the actual scammer in such an event and take it to court?

2) Can the money lost be recouped by the customer either by the App Store who sold the App and the Digital Service for free or the culprits?

Either failing ... there is little customer protection u going through the App Store.

 

[I7guy]

No, what will change the tide will be Apple allowing people to install apps directly from developer’s websites, with Apple charging developers nothing for that besides for the hardware that developers will need to develop (a Mac) and test (an iOS device) that app.

This will result in good apps being readily available via a web search and grassroots of people telling each other about them.

The App Store can continue unchanged.

This shouldn’t be remotely controversial - this is exactly how macOS has operated for over a decade.

I disagree this will be better. Things will be far worse with scam apps, malware, etc. This is nothing but sideloading couched as being a great thing for all.

 

[jonnyb098]

Apart from the fact that you don't know what the purchase price was for the 17 bitcoins that he originally held

...

Yeah -because banks and "real" money is soooo clean:

HSBC moved vast sums of dirty money after paying record laundering fine - ICIJ

FinCEN Files probe reveals Europe’s biggest bank aided massive Ponzi scheme while on probation over ties to drug kingpins.

www.icij.org

These are BANKS that profit on the viscious drug trade in Mexico - they are literally money laundering...

In fact Bitcoin - due to the public ledger and the blockchain, is actually _fully_ traceable.

I use money, I have a few different currencies and and small amount of crypto.

"Right now it’s a dork money that is making the rich richer" & "money back to their countries and love like a king or queen. The US dollar is very much worth something to many parts of the world."
Alternatively: the petrodollar and the US hegemony on the financial system enforces corruption in those countries and acts as a colonial superpower (much as the French banking system still controls North Africa, or the Chinese the rest of Africa & southern Europe through their "belt and road" initiative). Now I don't worry about that because I don't have a cognitive dissonance regarding this fact, but then again I don't have a misplaced dogmatic belief that the US dollar is some virtuous store of value.

Of course regular money is and can be dirty and used for terrible things. That’s the way it’s been forever. But the fact there are literally loads of different crypto makes it even more attractive to those wishing to funnel ACTUAL money around.

Every major economy in the world would have to completely rework itself in order for crypto to become a fully viable currency and means of exchange like for PAYING YOUR RENT. Not to mention all the undeveloped countries.
As I stated repeatedly on here, it’s backed by your local dollar essentially. If the dollar plummeted to almost nothing tomorrow crypto would also be worthless.

So yes right now and for any foreseeable future it’s an elitist dork currency.

 

[willcate]

I feel like Apple should be helping this person get their money back...

They should be paying him back, every penny.

 

[ericwn]

They should be paying him back, every penny.

In Bitcoin, of course.

 

[laptech]

This thread just goes to prove that many people will defend Apple 'no matter what'.

The man is being lauded as a fool, an idiot by many Apple supporting posters in here for simply doing one thing..trusting Apple.

The app was touted as being that from the offical company, it was not. Apple say every app is checked before being approved, the app was approved. Therefore why should the man have any doubts as to the legitimacy of the app when its being hosted on the offical app store and been approved for use in the app store.

The man had every right to expect that the app he was using was safe to use, it was not. The app store has been in use for many years. Over these years Apple knowledge of how fraudsters, fakers and scammers try to trick Apple to approve their app, would increase. The more tricks that get used, the more Apple becomes aware of the tricks and blocks them. If proper procedural checks were performed on the app it would have not got through the system. app users put their trust in Apple because Apple persistantly promote how safe the app store is to use.

Now someone has had a huge financial loss due to a fraudlent app, the majority in here are saying it is totally the man's fault and Apple are blameless.